John Selden

“ Selden was going to fight! He saw that when he took a stride and the other moved up with him. He stretched out a hand to steady for a rush. So did the other. He swung up his armed fist. The other did the like....
Laughing loud inside his casque, he flung the bar above his head, and went to meet the adversary in crashing impact.
Meanwhile, above in the sunshine, on the deck of the Fancy Free, a limp and wild-eyed gentleman, who had once been deacon in his far past, continued to call abroad with prayful fervor, if any help might come:
"The wicked man lieth in wait secretly as a lion.... ”

“ Salvington (a little village which is gained by leaving the main road two miles beyond Cissbury and bearing to the west) is distinguished as the birthplace, in 1584, of one who was considered by Hugo Grotius to be the glory of the English nation—John Selden. Nowadays, when we choose our glories among other classes of men than jurists and wits, it is more than possible for even cultured persons who are interested in books to go through life very happily without knowledge at all of this great man, the friend of great men and the writer best endowed with common sense of any of his day. ”

“ He coughed again. "Captain Wetherbee, do you remember when we last met?"
"No," said Wetherbee shortly.
Thereupon Mr. Selden recalled that meeting, and others, and his voice trailed like a snake in the dust, looping cryptic patterns. It was one of those counts of grievance and disaster such as almost any broken fugitive among far places has to tell. Thursday can offer them by the yard, and dear at the price of a drink. He spoke of shares and deals and swindling betrayal; of hope and fortune lost, and the false lead that puts a man on the chute and sets him off for a blackleg and a wanderer. ”

“ Selden broke in. “I may be an American, but I don’t work all the time! Come along!”
As they turned toward the steps, a bulky male figure suddenly loomed in front of them.
“Oh, how do you do,” said the countess, and then Selden saw that the man with whom she was shaking hands was John Halsey, who had been Paris correspondent of the London Journal from time immemorial. “Do you know Mr. Selden, Mr. Halsey?”
“Selden?” echoed Halsey, who up to that moment had not looked at him. “Oh, hello, Selden. I thought you were somewhere in the Balkans.” ”

“ The fact that Selden was not retained in the great case of ship money in 1637 by John Hampden, the cousin of his former client, may be accepted as additional evidence that his zeal in the popular cause wasnot so warm and unsuspected as it had once been. During the progress of this momentous constitutional conflict, indeed, he seems to have been absorbed in his oriental researches, publishing De jure naturali et gentium juxta disciplinam Ebraeorum in 1640. He was not elected to the Short Parliament of 1640 ”

“ I used to credit your honesty more or less myself—then."
"And now?" suggested Wetherbee.
Mr. Selden, late deacon, drew a husky breath.
"Why, now—I've caught up with you. I'm the flaw in the title, at 50 per cent. I'm judgment out of the past! Verily, no man shall escape it: do you mark? No man comes so far or hides his track so cleverly, even at Thursday Island. I've got your record—as you've got mine, of course; but yours is rather worse, with a warrant pending—of which, by the way, I know the very date.... And, besides, I've nothing at all to lose. I'm only a broken diver. ”

“ Selby (6) , a market-town of Yorkshire, on the Ouse, 15 m. S. of York; has a noted cruciform abbey church, founded in the 12th century, and exhibiting various styles of architecture; has some boat-building; manufactures flax, ropes, leather, bricks, &c.
Selden, John, born at Salvington, Sussex; adopted law as a profession, and was trained at Clifford's Inn and the Inner Temple, London; successful as a lawyer, he yet found time for scholarly pursuits, and acquired a great reputation by the publication of various erudite works bearing on old English jurisprudence and antiquities generally ”

“ It is poor business measuring the mouldered ramparts and counting the silent guns, marking the deserted battlefields and decorating the grassy graves, unless we can learn from it all some nobler lesson than to destroy. Men write of this, as of other wars, as if the only thing necessary to be impressed upon the rising generation were the virtue of physical courage and contempt of death. It seems to me that is the last thing that we need to teach; for since the days of John Smith in Virginia and the men of the Mayflower in Massachusetts, no generation of Americans has shown any lack of it. ”

“ So you will be good and take me.”
“Why, of course I’ll take you,” he said, and registered a mental vow to give her the best dinner Ciro’s could produce. “I shall be proud to take you!”
“You are very nice, you know,” she said, her head a little on one side. “Sometimes I almost regret that you do not care for me—but no, it is better as it is! I am going to see that you are rewarded. Now do not ask any questions!”
“Very well,” said Selden. “I will call for you at nine,” and he took his leave.
Once in his room, he got into robe and slippers, filled his pipe and threw himself on the chaise-longue. ”

“ Selden, immersed in his work, had told himself that external conditions did not matter to a man in his state, and that cold and ugliness were a good tonic for relaxed sensibilities. When an urgent case summoned him abroad to confer with a client in Paris, he broke reluctantly with the routine of the office; and it was only now that, having despatched his business, and slipped away for a week in the south, he began to feel the renewed zest of spectatorship that is the solace of those who take an objective interest in life. ”

“ She is a remarkable woman—much too clever for the prince. But you will see.”
“You have said no word of M. Selden,” the countess pointed out. “Why did you send me such elaborate instructions with regard to him—even some of his articles to read?”
The baron laughed softly.
“If I may say so,” he answered, “I am something of an artist. I like my pictures to be complete and harmonious. We must consider how the world, and especially England, will receive the announcement of this marriage, for its object will be at once plain to [43] every one. Selden is a man of great influence ”

“ Meanwhile, as the dinner advanced through a labyrinth of courses, in which it became clear that Mrs. Bry had occasionally broken away from Lord Hubert's restraining hand, Selden's general watchfulness began to lose itself in a particular study of Miss Bart. It was one of the days when she was so handsome that to be handsome was enough, and all the rest—her grace, her quickness, her social felicities—seemed the overflow of a bounteous nature. ”

“ Bathurst took his place of Vice-Chancellor, a man of good parts, and able to do good things, but he has a wife that scorns that he should be in print. A scornful woman! Scorns that he was Dean of Wells! No need of marrying such a woman, who is so conceited that she thinks herself fit to govern a college or a university.”
The learned Selden has left no good example to antiquaries, in point of gallantry. “It is reason,” says he, “a man that will have a wife should be at the charge of her trinkets, and pay all the scores she sets on him. ”

“ After the death of the earl of Kent in 1639 Selden lived permanently under the same roof with his widow. It is believed that he was married to her, although their marriage does not seem to have ever been publicly acknowledged. He died at Friary House in Whitefriars on the 30th of November 1654, and was buried in the Temple Church, London. In 1880 a brass tablet was erected to his memory by the benchers of the Inner Temple in the parish church of West Tarring. ”

“ We shall not be back till after dark," she said, almost impatiently.
Selden was looking at her with surprise: it took him a moment to regain his usual view of her; then he said, with an uncontrollable note of dryness: "That was not one of our party; the motor was going the other way."
"I know—I know———"She paused, and he saw her redden through the twilight. "But I told them I was not well—that I should not go out. Let us go down!" she murmured.
Selden continued to look at her; then he drew his cigarette-case from his pocket and slowly lit a cigarette. ”

“ A change had come over Selden's face as she spoke. Its guarded look had yielded to an expression still untinged by personal emotion, but full of a gentle understanding.
"I am glad to have you tell me that; but nothing I have said has really made the difference. The difference is in yourself—it will always be there. And since it is there, it can't really matter to you what people think: you are so sure that your friends will always understand you." ”

“ And yet perhaps not, for the face was careless too, with its dark skin and shining eyes and sensuous mouth; not a bad face, but rather a weak one, as of a man who no longer found any cause worth fighting for.
They had paused a moment to get some wraps from the vestiaire, and the countess looked back at him and smiled. Then they passed through the door together, and Selden, shaking himself out of his thoughts, betook himself to his room. ”

“ Alike in his Latin and in his English works, the style of Selden is prolix and embarrassed. He seems to have possessed a vast memory, and as he thought and wrote this memory seems ever to have suggested to him some collateral subject, and thus painfully to have diverted him from the direct course of his statement or argument. He is perpetually overburdened with the weight of his learning. ”

“ The boy was curiously like her, but the daughter was of a different and much finer type, and Selden guessed that she carried on the father’s strain. Not strikingly beautiful, but fresh-skinned and wholesome, with a face delicately chiselled and touched just the slightest, when in repose, by sadness or disillusion—just a little too old and too reserved for its years; in this respect more of Europe than of America. ”

“ She began to saunter about the room, examining the book-shelves between the puffs of her cigarette-smoke. Some of the volumes had the ripe tints of good tooling and old morocco, and her eyes lingered on them caressingly, not with the appreciation of the expert, but with the pleasure in agreeable tones and textures that was one of her inmost susceptibilities. Suddenly her expression changed from desultory enjoyment to active conjecture, and she turned to Selden with a question.
"You collect, don't you—you know about first editions and things?"
"As much as a man may who has no money to spend. ”

“ A sudden thought startled Selden out of his moodiness. What had the prince meant when he promised to give his money to the bank? Why had he smiled so ironically? Which bank?
In a moment Selden was hurrying toward the Sporting Club, and the instant he entered the rooms he knew that his suspicion was correct. That dense crowd around a single table could mean only one thing—somebody was playing the limit. ”

“ Then he paused for an instant to look quizzically into Selden’s eyes.
“You old reprobate!” he snorted. “I see through your game! But it’s all right!” he added. “Will you have lunch with me to-morrow? At Amirauté’s? One o’clock? Good! Till to-morrow, then!”
The two watched him until he passed from sight. [211] Then Madame Ghita turned to Selden with a smile.
“A most amusing man,” she said, “and a very great friend of yours.”
“Yes, old Scott is all right; as square as they make them. We have been in some close places together. ”

“ There had been a germ of truth in his declaration to Gerty Farish that he had never wanted to marry a “nice” girl: the adjective connoting, in his cousin’s vocabulary, certain utilitarian qualities which are apt to preclude the luxury of charm. Now it had been Selden’s fate to have a charming mother: her graceful portrait, all smiles and Cashmere, still emitted a faded scent of the undefinable quality. His father was the kind of man who delights in a charming woman: who quotes her, stimulates her, and keeps her perennially charming. ”

“ He lit Selden's proffered cigarette, and continued, in his high-pitched drawling tone: "None of my business, of course, but I didn't introduce her to the Duchess. Charming woman, the Duchess, you understand; and a very good friend of mine; but rather a liberal education."
Selden received this in silence, and after a few puffs Lord Hubert broke out again: "Sort of thing one can't communicate to the young lady—though young ladies nowadays are so competent to judge for themselves ”

“ Selden returned her look with a smile. "I was sorry too that we should have parted in that way; but I am not sure I didn't bring it on myself. Luckily I had foreseen the risk I was taking———"
"So that you really didn't care———?" broke from her with a flash of her old irony.
"So that I was prepared for the consequences," he corrected good-humouredly. "But we'll talk of all this later. Do come and sit by the fire. I can recommend that arm-chair, if you 'll let me put a cushion behind you." ”

“ The ladies stood in unrelated attitudes calculated to isolate their effects, and the men hung about them as irrelevantly as stage heroes whose tailors are named in the programme. It was Selden himself who unwittingly fused the group by arresting the attention of one of its members.
"Why, Mr. Selden!" Mrs. Fisher exclaimed in surprise; and with a gesture toward Mrs. Jack Stepney and Mrs. Wellington Bry, she added plaintively: "We're starving to death because we can't decide where to lunch." ”